Paul Celan, emerging from the European Jewish catastrophe with nothing but his (radically questioned) German mother tongue, challenges his translator too. John Felstiner discusses Celan’s poems and their embeddedness in the poet’s life.

“Voice” is a term often used in describing a poet’s work, yet it remains a slippery concept. Does voice come from within the individual or elsewhere? Does each poet have a core voice, or can a writer work in several different voices successfully? This workshop offers an opportunity to explore these questions through writing experiments and discussion.

What are the differences between poetry and prose? What are the strategies peculiar to each one? And in what way can an understanding of those strategies assist us in our own reading and writing of the prose poem? Carl Phillips leads a discussion that seeks to tame that sometimes nebulous but ever-persistent animal, the prose poem.

On the 25th anniversary of his death, five esteemed colleagues read and re-examine the work of Robert Lowell, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and one of the most influential post-World War II poets.

As part of Yari Yari: Black Women Writers and the Future: An International Conference on Literature by Women of African Descent, this reading and discussion celebrates the identity and independence of Black women poets from Africa and the African Diaspora.